the paleontologist said. I’m guessing he had to say that because everyone was inferring behavior from the fossil. I saw a picture of it in a magazine and felt depressed for days. The fossil was found in Liaoning in northeastern China and at its center is an adult Psittacosaurus, a small, squat dinosaur with a parrotlike beak that lived 125 million years ago. The skeleton is curled around those of thirty-four babies, each about the size of a Chihuahua. The babies are crowded together with their legs tucked underneath them and their heads raised, indicating that they were watching as their impending doom came to pass. It could have been a flood or a volcano or some other sudden act they couldn’t escape. Or maybe the group was hiding from a predator and the mother was holding her babies tight as they all watched the predator pass. They were about to breathe a sigh of relief, but then, in one loud boom, a mud slide happened and in an instant buried the whole family alive. You can make up endless stories that fit the picture, but the one thing I can’t escape is the mother’s futile attempt to protect.
